Thursday, March 5, 2026 @ 4:45-6:30pm

Sheryl Oring
Hybrid Event (Harris Theater and Zoom)

Sheryl Oring makes work that activates democracy through art. She is best known for her ongoing project I Wish to Say, in which she sets up a public office and invites members of the public to dictate postcards to the U.S. president, which she types verbatim on a manual typewriter. To date, she has typed more than 5,200 postcards to four presidents from hundreds of locations across the United States. Oring also creates prints, artist books, sculptures, and public artworks that foster dialogue and examine personal and collective histories. Her work has been presented at the U.S. Pavilion of the Venice Architecture Biennale; Bryant Park in Manhattan; the Brooklyn Public Library; the Free Library of Philadelphia; the Washington National Cathedral; and the Jewish Museum Berlin, among many other venues. In 2026, Oring’s work will be featured in America 250: Common Threads at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Oring has received support from the Creative Capital Foundation, Franklin Furnace, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Puffin Foundation, and the North Carolina Council for the Arts. She has completed public art commissions at the San Diego International Airport and the Tampa International Airport, and her work is held in collections including the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Britain, and numerous university libraries across the United States. She is the editor of Activating Democracy: The “I Wish to Say” Project (Intellect Books / University of Chicago Press, 2016) and is currently completing a forthcoming book, Secretary to the People: Civic Engagement Through the Art of Sheryl Oring (Intellect Books / University of Chicago Press, 2027), edited by Corey Dzenko.

www.sheryloring.org

This event will be held at the Harris Theater on the GMU Fairfax campus and online via Zoom. RSVP is required to receive the Zoom link via email the day-of!

Co-work at HOME

February 19-April 15 at Mason Exhibitions Arlington

Every Thursday (between the above dates): 12-4pm

Come for collaboration, quiet, research, or just new walls to be surrounded by.

March 1: Anna.log session

1-4pm

Unplug at HOME. Bring your crochet, knitting, a good book, and we’ll have chill vibes to provide an offline session for your life.

Anna.log to honor Anna Murray Douglass of Anacostia, and her legacy of hospitality.

Co-work at HOME

February 19-April 15 at Mason Exhibitions Arlington

Every Thursday (between the above dates): 12-4pm

Come for collaboration, quiet, research, or just new walls to be surrounded by.

CommuniTEA Salon

March 21: 1-4pm at Mason Exhibitions Arlington

This salon seamlessly weaves together meditation, cultural exploration, and community discussion, offering participants a “Think & Do” experience where they not only reflect on critical issues but also co-create solutions for a healthier, more connected future.

Tea will be available to blend and sip and heal.

Bring Your Own Supper Club - Building community through food

REGISTRATION RECOMMENDED: First-come, first-served seating. https://arlingtonva.libcal.com/event/16232100

Libraries and exhibitions alike serve as repositories of collective memory. By bringing them together, Arlington County Library and Mason Exhibitions Arlington affirm the kitchen as a site of learning, preservation, and connection.

Join us for Bring Your Own Supper Club, hosted at Mason Exhibitions Arlington.

Lavita Mondie @vitatheveganchef will be utilizing the mobile kitchen to lead us in learning and collective cooking a soup to accompany your meal.

This will be a gathering where each person brings their own dinner for themself--whether from your fridge or picked up on your way to the gallery. Feel free to bring extra to share. The start time is flexible, so please feel free to come when you can. We will provide plenty of seating as well as some fun conversation starters to help you get to know your neighbors and make friends.

While you eat, you can also enjoy the current exhibition on display, "The Prescription is HOME: A Manifesto," a community-sourced, immersive visual arts exhibition by Melani N. Douglass, on view January 23–April 18, 2026.

REGISTRATION RECOMMENDED: First-come, first-served seating. https://arlingtonva.libcal.com/event/16232100

Co-work at HOME

February 19-April 15 at Mason Exhibitions Arlington

Every Thursday (between the above dates): 12-4pm

Come for collaboration, quiet, research, or just new walls to be surrounded by.

Thursday, February 12, 2026 @ 4:45-6:30pm

Sandy Williams IV
Hybrid Event (Harris Theater and Zoom)

Sandy Williams IV is an interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and professor. Their work studies the vernacular of time as it exists across social landscapes and as various units of measurement. Williams’s public artworks layer context against disenfranchised memories and often include emancipatory, live, shared experiences.

Williams’s work conjures communal catharsis and operates like an archive.

Williams is the recipient of the 2024 Joan Mitchell Fellowship, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship, and the New York Community Trust Van Lier Fellowship. They have presented solo exhibitions at Palo Gallery (New York), 1708 Gallery (Richmond), the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington (Ontario), Roanoke College (Salem, VA), Telematic Arts (San Francisco), Reynolds Gallery (Richmond), and Second Street Gallery (Charlottesville). Their work has been featured in The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Washington Post, Hyperallergic, and the BBC. Collaborations include Creative Time, CulturalDC, and the Weeksville Heritage Center. Selected group exhibitions and performances include presentations at the Museum of Contemporary Art Virginia Beach, the Arlington Museum of Contemporary Art, the Harnett Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art at VCU, The Shed (New York), Socrates Sculpture Park (New York), Grounds For Sculpture, Martos Gallery (New York), M+B Gallery (Los Angeles), de boer Gallery (Los Angeles), Springsteen (Baltimore), and NADA House (New York). Williams has been an artist in residence at McDowell (New Hampshire), MASS MoCA (Massachusetts), the Atlantic Center for the Arts (Florida), SOMA (Mexico City), ACRE (Chicago), and the University of Cumbria (UK).

www.sandywilliamsiv.com

This event will be held at the Harris Theater on the GMU Fairfax campus and online via Zoom. RSVP is required to receive the Zoom link via email the day-of!

Fenwick Library Main Reading Room (Fenwick 2001)

Inspired by the exhibition The Mirage of Ancient Egypt, this symposium offers an exciting opportunity to explore Egypt in popular culture in more depth.

Topics include how Orientalism informs Egyptologists' interpretation of the evidence for the daily lives of ancient Egyptian queens, and how alien conspiracy theories and pseudoarchaeological narratives create a mirage of the ancient past.

Speakers:

• Dr. Jacquelyn Williamson, George Mason University
  Assoc. Professor, Art and Archaeology of the Ancient Mediterranean

• Dr. David S. Anderson, Radford University
  Associate Professor of Anthropological Sciences

• Dr. Leslie Anne Warden, Roanoke College
  Associate Professor of Art History and Archaeology

A private curator-led tour of the exhibition, The Mirage of Ancient Egypt, will follow the symposium. Refreshments provided!

You are invited to a Veteran's Conversation in conjunction with the art exhibition Material Acts of Resistance by Michèle Colburn. This gathering will explore how art can serve as a powerful medium for reflection, healing, and resistance. Colburn’s mixed-media works—created from materials such as gunpowder, wire, thread, and burnt paper—transform the tools and symbols of conflict into contemplative expressions of endurance, vulnerability, and renewal. Veterans, guests, and community members are invited to engage in dialogue about how creative practices can reframe experiences of conflict, foster resilience, and open space for meaning-making beyond violence.

FUSE Bldg., 3401 Fairfax Dr, Rm. 1327,Arlington, VA 22201

https://www.masonexhibitions.org/exhibitions/materialactsofresistance

The Prescription Is Home, an exhibition that centers home as the first site of consciousness, care, creativity, and community. This photography and socially engaged art installation captures photos from families east of the Anacostia River or with roots there for more than 15 years.

Bring the family for some quality time at the house opening reception and housewarming. Come through for a game of spades or dominoes. Catch up with friends old and new. Learn more about how homes have been a central part of community organizing and progress for communities and families east of the river. Welcome to SE where homes function as collective spaces for gathering, safety, progress, and change.

What to expect:

Card and game tables

Red cups for adults blue cups for kids

Games, music, and conversation

Time to experience the exhibition at your own pace

Come as you are. Stay while you can.

Welcome home.

Join Mason Exhibitions for at the opening reception and housewarming for Prescription is HOME: a Manifesto. Melani N. Douglass will provide an artist talk and discussion with the families featured in the exhibition. 

It’s not a housewarming without a little family competition! We’ll have a spades tournament, and a table ready for those who are interested in learning.

A live DJ and light refreshments will assist in bringing the community together to warm this HOME exhibition.

The exhibition will always have board and table games available.

Join us on Thursday, November 20, 4:45-6:30pm EST for Visual Voices with Dr. Cheryl Holmes Miller. This event will be held at Harris Theater on GMU's Fairfax Campus, and via Zoom. RSVP is required to receive the zoom link via email the day of!

Questions should be emailed to Jeff Kenney (jkenney5@gmu.edu)

 Cheryl D. Holmes-Miller is one of the design field's most respected figures. She is legendary for her decades of scholarship and activism and is known as a touchstone and conscience for the design profession. This long-awaited book documents the history of the question she has been asking for decades: “Where are the Black designers?” along with related questions that are urgent to the design profession: Where did they originate? Where have they been? Why haven't they been represented in design histories and canons? 

Holmes-Miller traces her development as a designer and leader, beginning with her own family and its rich multiethnic history. She narrates her experiences as a design student at Rhode Island School of Design, Maryland Institute College of Art, and Pratt, leading up to her oft-cited Pratt thesis examining barriers to success for Black designers. Holmes-Miller describes the work of her eponymous studio for noted clients that included NASA, Time Inc., and the nascent Black Entertainment Television, as well as the story of her later critiques of the industry in the design press, most notably in Print magazine. Miller also recounts the parallel history of collective efforts by fellow scholars and advocates over the past fifty years to identify and celebrate Black designers. 

Celebrate transgender voices with a day of readings, panels, and a community writing workshop hosted by This series of events will include readings and discussions from Charlie Jane Anders, K. Iver, Dominique Dickey, Luke Sutherland, Emily Holland, Andrea Abi-Karam, Amir Rabiyah, Addie Tsai and Andrew Joseph White. See a full schedule and list of speakers here.

As part of these events, Fenwick Gallery and the University Libraries Special Collections Research Center will present a pop-up display of photobooks, artists’ books, and zines by transgender and nonbinary artists, in connection with the exhibition How We Saw What They Saw. Stop by from 11:30am-12pm or in between panels to view these titles!

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20
Fenwick Library Main Reading Room (Fenwick 2001)
Panels & workshops: 12:00PM–4:15 PM
Pop-up library display: 11:30AM–3:00PM (drop in between sessions)

“A Seat at the Table” invites you to rethink the phrase "women belong in the kitchen" by turning it into a celebration of strength, tradition, and legacy. With an interactive display of custom designed ceramics and recipe books, we will honor the women who have quietly shaped history.

Come sit with us, enjoy a cup of tea, and take part in preserving their remarkable stories.

Fenwick Gallery at Fenwick Library
November 18, 5–7PM

This project is organized by students in AVT309: Art as Social Action, and will be temporarily installed in Fenwick Gallery in conversation with “How We See What They Saw: A Reading Room of Photobooks by Women.”

Becoming the Unaine is a collaborative exhibition by photographer Liz Louise Johnson and linguist Tereua Miracle Oliphant Kaintoka. Johnson lived in Kiribati for eighteen months between 2013 and 2014, and after returning to the United States, studied Kiribati language and culture in a university course taught by Kaintoka, an i-Kiribati scholar. It was the first university-level course dedicated entirely to the culture and language of the small island nation of 112,000 people. Johnson was in the very first classroom, and Kaintoka was the very first professor. It was in this classroom learning about dialects and rituals that a seed was planted, one that would grow, years later, into the beginnings of this project.

Years later, the two reunited and returned to Kiribati to create a project that allowed them to step into a shared circle: a love of the Kiribati people and language, and the common ground of womanhood. It was in this space that Becoming the Unaine was created. 

The project centers on the translation of the Kiribati word unaine: a respected elderly woman of wisdom. Johnson and Kaintoka recreated chronologically the arc of womanhood starting with pregnancy and continued through menarche, and marriage. It weaves together one lived life through 16 women at different ages. 

Material Acts of Resistance features the work of Michèle Colburn, who transforms volatile materials such as gunpowder, wire, and thread into quiet testaments of endurance and dissent. Her pieces trace the space between destruction and repair, turning the remnants of conflict into gestures of resilience. Through drawing, burning, and stitching, Colburn reveals how the act of making itself becomes a form of resistance - an insistence on memory, survival, and the enduring power of transformation.

Hosted by the Center for Peacemaking Practice a the Carter School, this event brings together the artist and members of the Carter School community for a conversation about the intersections of art, peacebuilding, and narrative transformation. The dialogue will explore how creative expression can deepen understanding of conflict, illuminate resilience, and reimagine the boundaries between art and peace practice.

The session will conclude with a Q&A and an optional visit to the Material Acts of Resistance exhibition in the Fuse Building gallery.

Speakers:

Michèle Colburn, Artist

Dr. Margarita Tadevosyan, Executive Director, Center for Peacemaking Practice

Audrey Williams, Ph.D. Candidate, Manager, Narrative Transformation Lab

Seung Gyo Kim, M.S. Student, Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation

From curation to practical application, how can visual art spaces enhance immersive experiences for all patrons? What are the latest trends and limitations in accessibility tools? How can curators both support and serve as advocates for accessibility in the visual arts? Speakers will discuss practices for integrating assistive technologies and other techniques that advance accessibility in the visual arts, ensuring galleries are welcoming and inclusive.

Speakers:

Alissa Maru

Associate curator, Exhibition Manager, Mason Exhibitions Arlington George Mason University

Korey Singleton

Deputy ADA coordinator for Accessibility and ATI Manager. Assistive Technology institute George Mason University

Register with QR code on the flyer!

Join us on Thursday, October 30, 4:45-6:30pm EST for Visual Voices with Kayla E. This event will be held at the Center for the Arts Concert Hall on GMU's Fairfax Campus, and via Zoom. RSVP is required to receive the zoom link via email the day of!

Questions should be emailed to Jeff Kenney (jkenney5@gmu.edu)

About the Artist

Kayla E. (she/her) is an award-winning Texas-born artist. She works as creative director at Fantagraphics and is a recipient of a 2023-2024 Princeton Hodder Fellowship. She is the co-founder and former President of Nat. Brut Inc., a non-profit that produces an art and literary magazine, of which she was the Editor-in-Chief for nine years. She earned her B.A. in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard University, where she served as the Art Director for the Harvard Lampoon. Precious Rubbish, her graphic novel debut, is a work of trauma recollection told in the style of post-war children’s comics. Kayla lives in North Carolina with her wife and two dogs. 
www.kaylaework.com 

Join us at Mason Exhibitions Arlington on October 25, 5-7pm for a Poetry Reading with Holly Mason Badra and Zhawen Shali.

Authors Holly Mason Badra (Sleeping in the Courtyard) and Zhawen Shali will read from their books and discuss cultural and artist production and erasure/appropriation in relation to Kurdish communities. The authors will also respond to artworks in the exhibition.

Questions should be emailed to Alissa Maru (amaru@gmu.edu)

Kî me Ez? - Who Am I?
Contemporary Kurdish Art in Diaspora

September 5 - October 25, 2025
Mason Exhibitions Arlington

The Kurdish experience is often marked by oppressive measures like militarized displacement, linguicide, genocide, gender-based violence, imprisonment by the state for cultural and artistic expression, and exiled artists, writers, and activists. Kurdish identity is built upon the rubble, yes, but also within abundance, too. Within this kaleidoscopic reality, Kî me Ez asks our Kurdish artists to take on this existential question: Who Am I?

The collection’s theme grows out of the poem “Kî me Ez” by Cegerxwin, which contemplates Kurdish identity. Moving beyond stereotypical ideas and monolithic understandings, Kî me Ez seeks to offer a depiction of the multifaceted experiences and narratives that exemplify Kurdish existence.

Best of Film at Mason is a showcase of recent notable and award-winning student films from George Mason University’s Film and Video Studies. This year’s program captures student work ranging from introductory production, documentary filmmaking, advanced fiction filmmaking, and senior thesis films. A live Q&A with the filmmakers will follow the screening.

Kaju Katli – Sujay Khona
Ghosted – Chole Salaman
Anonymous Voices – Marco Duran
When the Rain Stopped – Meghan Colovos
Grit – Chrys Salman
Scarecrow – Jax Azad
The Lovely Inconvenience of Having Too Many Pants Pockets – Kai Morales
A Mourning In Chinatown – Ali Ali
Dust Bunny – Natalia Melnikova
The Lick – James Bah
Breakfast for Dinner – Dominique Dargan
Pas de Deux – Madison Koren

Join the Special Collections Research Center on October 22 for the opening celebration of “Trail Blazing: Connecting and Keeping the Appalachian Trail,” with a special presentation from Bob Vay (University Archivist). No registration required.

This exhibition highlights stories and materials from SCRC’s Appalachian Trail Conservancy records, which document the creation, management, and use of the Appalachian Trail.

Special Collections Research Center Seminar Room, Fenwick Library

Join us on October 17, 6-8pm for an Interdisciplinary Discussion about Kurdish history and identity.

In this interdisciplinary talk, three Kurdish PhD Scholars across Mason will talk about their research, making connections to the artwork in this show. Join moderator Holly Mason Badra and panelists Arash Saleh, Golzar Salih, and Omer Pacal for a chance to think more about Kurdish experiences across disciplines. 

Questions should be directed to Alissa Maru (amaru@gmu.edu)

Kî me Ez? - Who Am I?
Contemporary Kurdish Art in Diaspora

September 5 - October 25, 2025
Mason Exhibitions Arlington

The Kurdish experience is often marked by oppressive measures like militarized displacement, linguicide, genocide, gender-based violence, imprisonment by the state for cultural and artistic expression, and exiled artists, writers, and activists. Kurdish identity is built upon the rubble, yes, but also within abundance, too. Within this kaleidoscopic reality, Kî me Ez asks our Kurdish artists to take on this existential question: Who Am I?

The collection’s theme grows out of the poem “Kî me Ez” by Cegerxwin, which contemplates Kurdish identity. Moving beyond stereotypical ideas and monolithic understandings, Kî me Ez seeks to offer a depiction of the multifaceted experiences and narratives that exemplify Kurdish existence.

Golzar Salih is a PhD student in Sociology, with a concentration in globalization. Her research critically explores the intersections of gender justice and human rights, with a particular focus on the lived experiences of war, trauma, sexual violence, enslavement, and displacement among women in Kurdistan and the Yazidi community. Drawing on feminist and postcolonial theory, Golzar’s work examines the impacts of global power structures on marginalized populations. She is deeply committed to advancing scholarship that bridges academic research with social justice and community engagement.

Arash Saleh is a Ph.D. student in Political Science at George Mason University, specializing in Comparative Politics with a focus on authoritarian durability. His research explores the resilience and adaptability of authoritarian regimes in the face of political, economic, and societal pressures. Originally from Iran, Arash earned his Bachelor’s degree in Law before pursuing advanced studies in the United States. At George Mason, he has served as a Teaching Assistant for the past two semesters, contributing to undergraduate learning while deepening his expertise in political science.

Omer Pacal is getting his Ph.D. in Sociology at George Mason University where he holds a position as a Graduate Research Assistant. He holds an MA in Cultural Studies from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. His areas of interest are Market formation, Peasants and Politics, State and Violence, and Political Movements in the Middle East.